Starting with Sledge Tower (up to 19 storeys) there will be 5 more blocks which will be built in a line going south down Dalston Square west side.

The foundations for Sledge Tower have been laid.

Readers will recall that in the great credit freeze of 2008 Barratt's share price crashed by 90% and it laid off thousands of workers nationally. There were nightmares on Mare Street. Would they leave Dalston as half-finished concrete stumps? The deep freeze seemed all embracing.

A development in Wolverhampton, abandoned by Barratt three years ago, where now they're back on site.

In the last budget the government announced the latest 'First Buy' bail out for indebted housebuilders. It would lend first time buyers half the 20% deposit interest free on new build homes and housebuilders would lend them the rest.The Dalston Square flats Barratt are now marketing will just qualify for the FirstBuy scheme - the average price of a one-bed flat is £276,000 so it squeezes under the schemes upper limit of £280,000. But first time buyers will also need £13,800 cash (5%) and an income of £60,000 pa to qualify - if not, forget it because there's no affordable housing, despite the massive public funds already invested, in the scheme.

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Wild Hackney is yet another sonic masterpiece brought to us by Hackney Podcast. It's a radio docu-drama taking you through an imaginary landscape of the Lee Valley after the seawater has risen.

Photo by Squint/Opera

Made in response to the canal and the surrounding ancient flood plains, the piece takes as inspiration the Victorian Gothic novel After London by Richard Jefferies. Written in 1885, the book imagines London reverting to nature after a flood, with only a few survivors roaming the marshland.

Click the sidebar 'Hackney Podcast' to have listen -> ->

Using field recordings of the area, the feature moves through scenes of a future Hackney combining elements of documentary and fiction to reflect on the allure of urban ruin.

Sinclair's latest book - Ghost Milk -Calling time on the grand project" - focuses on the river Lea valley and the 2012 Olympic site. A " scorching 400 page diatribe...a literary polemic, full of dazzling phrases and angry denunciation".

The evening includes film by Emily Richardson of Manor Gardens Allotments, blue fence images from Chris Petit, the writer and curator Gareth Evans and a jazz/voice collaboration with OPEN's founder, East London lawyer and saxophonist Bill Parry-Davies.

"We are all suckling on this new chemical, this ghost milk, this substance that buffers between the old dream of London that I have and the computer generated , perfected, hard edged dream where nothing is what it looks like"

Planning alerts!

OPEN Dalston is a forum of local people who live or work in Dalston. OPEN Dalston campaigns for excellence in the quality of the built environment and public realm, the provision of transportation and amenities, and to ensure that changes to these have proper regard to the needs of local residents and businesses and the maintenance of a sustainable residential and business community. For more information please email info@opendalston.net
Some members of OPEN Dalston are also members, and some are Directors, of the not-for-profit company OPEN (Organisation for Promotion of Environmental Needs Ltd) – www.openuk.net